chemistry
by astarisms
Summary: The new art teacher shares a hallway with the chemistry teacher, who needs a lesson in manners. High school teachers AU.


Lucifer Morgenstern was the teacher everyone dreaded. From students' first days as freshmen, they heard the horror stories of the strict, tough-grader who taught chemistry. While girls swooned over him in the halls, they balked in his classroom.

It wasn't that he was a bad teacher, necessarily. It was more than possible to get a good grade in his class, as long as you really wanted one and as long as you followed instructions to the 't'. But, as many of the students joked, he also had a degree in being a professional asshole. Their favorite story to tell was about the time a kid brought in a chocolate bar to lab, and Lucifer had confiscated it and eaten the whole thing in front of him.

He knew all of this, and cared for none of it.

He cared even less for all the whisperings about the new art teacher. It was all that anyone could talk about the past few days, and especially that morning — it had been a bit of a slow news week, he supposed.

While he was aware of her, he hadn't seen her yet, and he didn't plan on going out of his way like many of his coworkers had done. It didn't look like he could escape the talk of her no matter where he went, however, and it followed him even when he walked into the printer room to get his handouts.

"She's a sweetheart."

"A real looker, too."

"It's a little weird, though, how much she smiles, don't you think?"

"Maybe. Hey, Lucy, have you met her yet?"

Lucifer ground his teeth at the nickname, grabbed his handouts, and left without comment.

He sincerely hoped she'd be old news, fast — and that old Humphrey would stop fucking calling him "Lucy".

 **xxx**

The following Monday, Lucifer found himself at the school far earlier than usual. He was demonstrating an experiment today, and needed to get things set up before his first period class.

There were only a handful of other cars in the staff parking lot, some he recognized as the janitors', one he knew was the secretary's, and then one he had never seen before.

He didn't pay much attention to it, already not in the best mood at having to be up this early and already wishing it was 4 o'clock so he could go home.

He gathered his things from his car and crossed the short distance from the parking lot to the front doors of the school, pushing the door open with his side since he didn't have much in the way of free hands.

He got halfway to his classroom before he stopped, hearing something coming from down the opposite hallway. He tilted his head, before he recognized the noise as singing.

"What the hell," he muttered under his breath, but continued his trek to his classroom, deciding it wasn't worth his time. So much for his hopes of a quiet morning, though.

Nudging the door open with full hands, he entered his classroom and began setting up for the demonstration. He preferred to work in silence, but it seemed like that was impossible that morning.

Since he finished a bit earlier than expected, he cracked his door and glared in the direction the singing was still coming from with no sign of letting up anytime soon. Who was cheery enough this early to be singing?

Determined to get to the bottom of things and stop the noise this early, he ventured out of his classroom and towards the voice, finding himself in the hallway dedicated to the art classes and chorus and other silly extracurriculars.

He was standing outside the art room before he realized that the voice must belong to the new teacher, and felt a bit silly for the delayed comprehension. He attributed it to the fact that it wasn't even 7:30 in the morning and he was still in the process of waking up, a full 2 hours after his alarm had gone off.

The door was open, and he stood there for a moment, just staring in at the scene before him.

The first thing he noticed was that the room was in the process of being bedecked with flowers and greenery. There were potted plants, fresh flowers stuck in old paint-stained cups, and a lot of lights threaded between. The far wall was left completely blank, but other than that, not an inch of space was left undecorated.

The second thing he noticed was the redhead teetering precariously on the top step of a stepladder in an attempt to string a few lights above the old lockers that had been converted into an open sort of supply area filled with different kinds of paints, brushes, markers, pencils, and other art shit he didn't care to examine further.

She was still singing to herself, though it was a bit strained with her efforts now, and the words were choppy with her concentration.

"If I do that will you stop with the singing?"

His crass intrusion startled her, and she gasped, dropping the lights and catching the edge of the lockers to steady herself.

"Oh! Sorry, I didn't see you there," she said, once she'd caught her balance. She promptly abandoned the lights and clambered down the stepladder, coming to stand before him and holding her hand out with a bright smile. "Hi! I'm Natalie McAllister, the new teacher. Nice to meet you!"

He stared at her just long enough to make her hand hanging in the air awkward, then took it and shook once. He dropped it unceremoniously and moved around her.

"Yes, I gathered that much on my own."

He climbed the stepladder and had much less trouble stringing the lights along the back of the lockers. He wasn't sure how she wanted it but he really didn't care to make it pretty at this point.

"I — oh, thank you."

"Yeah, sure," he said, as he flicked the lights on and got down. "Just – no more singing."

Her cheeks colored in embarrassment, but she never stopped smiling. She was way too perky and it was way too early for him to deal with her.

"Yeah, yeah, of course. Sorry, I didn't think anyone would be here this early."

"Yeah. Okay."

He skirted around her to go back to his own classroom, but she stopped him.

"Wait! I didn't catch your name."

"...Lucifer."

She laughed, and he turned to look at her, eyebrow raised. She covered her mouth with her hand.

"No, seriously?"

"I am serious. Lucifer Morgenstern. I teach a real subject across the hall and I'd appreciate if you kept the singing to a minimum."

Even though he'd meant it to be offensive, it didn't look like she had taken it that way. Instead, she looked vaguely amused and intrigued.

"Sorry, and what would a 'real' subject be?" she asked, complete with finger quotes and a cock of her hips.

He arched a dark brow at her.

"A real subject is chemistry. Biology. Physics. Math. Something students can use in their real lives and get them decent jobs. Not something useless like art, for example."

At that, Natalie's smiled widened conspiratorially.

"Ah, but that's where you're wrong. A subject is never useless if it means something to even one person. You'd be surprised at how many people art touches, Mr. Morgenstern."

He opened his mouth to retaliate, but it was at that moment that the first bell rung. He hadn't even noticed that it had gotten so late.

"Time for class! Hopefully I'll see you around," she said pleasantly, and turned away from him to finish getting ready for the day. He was left with his mouth hanging open for several beats before he turned and walked back to his own classroom.

 **xxx**

The next few weeks that followed were… interesting, to say the least. What Lucifer never expected from his encounter with the new, too-nice art teacher was her retaliation.

He found miniature printed artworks in every corner of his classroom. He recognized some of them, but for the most part all were completely different from one another. He shoved all of the small slips of paper into the bottom drawer of his desk.

He discovered some of the more harmless chemicals replaced with paint. The chemicals were never hard to find, usually just pushed behind their replacement, but it was exceedingly annoying, especially when he realized too late that the ionized water was now an identical bottle of clear glitter paint.

He arrived every Monday and Friday, without fail, to his whiteboard intricately decorated with dry erase marker recreations of Van Gogh and Monet and Picasso, and other pieces he assumed were original, and would spend at least 10 minutes of his morning cleaning it off.

And everytime he passed Miss McAllister in the hall, she would smile at him so innocently and wish him a good day.

It was infuriating. Even moreso, the fact that he couldn't help but admire her efforts in whatever game she was playing. He was impressed by her, and he was irritated at himself for his own amusement at her antics.

One day, after a demonstration during which he discovered his worksheets with careful lab instructions were misplaced in favor of a stack of paint by number worksheets, he decided this needed to come to an end.

When the final bell rang, he waited until the last student had rushed out before crossing the hall to the art room.

He hadn't been in there since his first encounter with her, but standing in the doorway now, he understood what the previously blank wall had been for. It was decorated with student artworks, filled from top to bottom with oil and watercolor and colored pencil assignments. Some were cringey, while others looked like they had potential.

Natalie was cleaning up, wiping off the tables and straightening up stations as she went. She looked up when he came in, and her greeting smile made him suspicious despite the fact that it seemed completely genuine. Her hair was coming out of the loose bun she'd thrown it up in, and when she reached up to tuck it behind her ear, he noticed a streak of paint on her cheek.

"Lucy! What brings you to this side of the hallway?" she asked brightly, and his eyes narrowed at her.

"I see you've been talking to Humphrey." She giggled, leaving her rag on the table and instead pushing the stools beneath it.

"He's just the funniest man. He's been very welcoming, too."

"Fantastic," he said, and while Natalie didn't miss the sarcastic edge to his tone, she didn't let it bother her either. "Don't call me that."

"You got it, Lucy."

He ground his teeth, but decided against arguing with her more about it. Besides, that wasn't the bone he'd come to pick with her that day.

He opened up his hand and all the slips he'd found over the course of the month scattered all over the floor.

"What the hell are these?"

She kept a surprisingly convincing poker face, if it weren't for the twinkle in her eyes.

"Looks like a collection of art. Why, Mr. Morgenstern, I would have never pegged you for the type."

"You're playing a dangerous game, Ms. McAllister."

"Really? I figured my games to be fun and maybe a little silly. Dangerous was the last thing that occurred to me while filling up your fancy water with glitter paint."

She wasn't taking him seriously, he could tell. She was far too amused. For a moment, he wondered what it was about him that made this woman think he was so easily prankable.

"Two can play at this game, and if I were you, I'd drop it now."

"Having a second player would make things way more interesting, don't you think?"

He glared, seeing no point in talking to her further, and turned to walk out.

"Do let me know when you've found the rest of the prints!" she called out behind him, and he heard the laughter in her voice.

For a moment, he paused. What did she mean, the rest? He didn't leave himself room to ponder though, immediately resuming his stride to gather his things and leave.

He smirked to himself. She hadn't won. He'd get her back.

 **xxx**

He found it incredibly limiting and annoying, to have to reduce his pranks to be innocuous enough for a public school setting, but he did so anyways.

While he was still walking in to art on his whiteboard and having to dig around for the correct chemicals and finding mini art prints falling out of every crevice (those of which he was beginning to wonder if she hadn't hid all of them at once and he was just continuously finding their various hiding places), the frequency had lessened a bit since he'd confronted her.

But now it was his turn. He replaced their art smocks with cheap lab coats. He took all the jewelry and beads from the cabinets and replaced them with model kits. He covered up Natalie's whiteboard, full of definitions like "perspective" and "chroma" with chemical formulas. He replaced every paintbrush he could get his hands on with the brushes they used to clean the flasks in lab.

They weren't as grand as he wanted, but given his limited resources and the setting, they were satisfying enough.

He reveled in the sounds of confusion and dismay from the art students when he passed the classroom on the way to his own that morning, and when he met Natalie's eyes, she gave him a conceding tilt of her head.

For the rest of the week, there was little response from her side. Her door had been shut all week and the Friday morning piece wasn't on his whiteboard when he walked in that morning. On the tail end of his victory high, he accepted this as surrender, ignoring the little twinge of disappointment he felt at the absence of the bright colors he'd come to accept as the norm.

He'd won, and that was all that mattered.

On Monday morning, however, he was surprised to find Natalie waiting for him in his classroom, sitting on his desk and flipping through the stack of mini artworks he'd still been accumulating.

She looked up when he walked in, and smiled (he couldn't possibly fathom how someone smiled as much as her, but he found himself grateful for it that rainy Monday — he was unwilling to admit how much he'd missed it).

"Good morning."

"...Morning," he said, with no small amount of suspicion.

"Oh, c'mon. I'm not here to prank you. You won, didn't you? I just came to ask if you'd like to have lunch with me today. My room, my treat." She sounded sincere, but he was still at a loss.

"Why?" She laughed at the question, tilting her head at him.

"Gosh, Lucy, who hurt you? I don't know. As a truce or something. Can't a girl just invite a guy to lunch without all the third degree?"

"No." She rolled her eyes playfully at him, and leaned forward, elbows on her knees.

"Well?"

"...Fine." Grinning again, she hopped off her desk.

"Great! I'll see you then."

She was out his room before he could respond, and he glanced over his shoulder as she disappeared into her own classroom in confusion. He shook it off, and walked around to the desk she had just been sitting on as the first bell rung.

It was time for class, anyways.

He did a decent job of keeping lunch off his mind, until, of course, the bell rung. He surprised himself with how much he was actually looking forward to it.

He followed his students out into the hallway, but continued straight ahead instead of to the left towards the lunch room. Her door was closed, which he found a bit weird, but he didn't look into it further as he opened it himself and walked inside.

Immediately, he stopped. Her entire class was still there, staring at him. It took him a second to understand what he was looking at, until he noticed they were all in the lab coats he'd hung on the racks instead of their smocks. The only thing was that they weren't white anymore — they were painted. Some of them had intricate patterns and swirls, some had big, looping letters, others had been tie-dyed.

"Thank you for the new smocks, Mr. Morgenstern," they chorused.

"And for the model kits!" one kid off to the side said, and when Lucifer looked, his eyes widened at the structures on the table behind him. They had definitely been made with the pieces in the kit, but they hardly looked like what had been pictured on the boxes. Instead, it looked vaguely like a recreation of some ancient Greek or Roman statue, from what he could tell.

Before he could examine it too closely, another kid was thanking him for the new cool brushes, and when he swiveled to look in their direction, he saw the back wall, previously covered with artwork of every imaginable medium, decorated solely in paintings that had clearly been done with wide brushes with stiff bristles.

"I — um…"

He heard Natalie's too loud laugh, and she whispered something to the kids before ushering them all off to lunch. They hung up their coats on the way out, waving to Natalie before disappearing one by one out the door.

"I believe I promised you lunch?"

"What the hell was that?" he asked, finally having regained his voice. She smiled at him, and it was that same conspiratorial little grin she'd had when he'd first met her.

"That," she said, "was a demonstration."

"Of?"

"There's art everywhere. In everything. You just have to see it, or rather, you have to be willing to see it. These kids have a purpose. They have something they love and that's creating. What does it matter what they're creating? Why do they have to use formulas to make what they do mean something?"

"I… That's what this was all about?"

Natalie nodded, coming around to stand in front of him and looking up at him.

"Yeah. That's what it was all about. Art is not useless if it means something to someone. Do you get it?"

He stared down at her, for a moment too long. If art was in everything, then he supposed he could see what she meant, when he was looking at the defiant light in her eyes, the arch of her brow. He could see the art in her.

"Yeah. I think I do."

She grinned and his heart skipped a beat.

"Fantastic. Now, lunch?"

"I can't believe you fooled me like that."

"Can't you?" she said, laughing. "You're surprisingly easy to fool." Before he could get another word in, she took his hand and pulled him over to the meal she'd ordered for them. "Truce? For real this time?" she asked, a smile teasing the corners of her lips.

"Yeah. Sure. Truce," he said, and found it hard to keep the smile off his own face.


End file.
